


Poe Party One-Shots and Drabbles

by HelgaHufflepunk



Category: Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED THE ORIGINAL OF THIS FIC SO THAT'S GREAT, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, some of these were originally posted on tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-08-30 11:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8530633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelgaHufflepunk/pseuds/HelgaHufflepunk
Summary: Alternate Endings! Roommate AUs! Halloween parties! Poebel angst! Wellenore angst! John Proctor! And more to come! Amazing!





	1. The Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe

**Author's Note:**

> accidentally deleted the original of this fic so that's great

Annabel is dead. Eddie’s heart is beat-beat-beating under his floorboards.

The constables call them survivors - Poe and Lenore and Oscar and Hemingway. They call them lucky.

He feels Eddie’s blood on his hands no matter how many times he washes them. He remembers the chill of Annabel’s lifeless skin no matter how many days pass. He does not dream, no matter how long he sleeps.

What happens next?

He writes. Poems for Annabel, stories for his guilt, grocery lists for the one day of the month he ever actually leaves the house.

Lenore leaves. It takes longer than he thought it would, but comes sooner than he’d hoped.

He thinks of leaving, too. Lenore isn’t the only one trying to out-run her ghosts, after all. And he does, for a while - goes to Virginia to visit family, to New York to write and write and fail and nearly starve - but he always ends up coming back to Baltimore.

He knows why, of course. It’s because this house has the last of Annabel in it - has his memories of her, good and bad and horrifying, and he doesn’t want to let go of them.

He drinks. A lot. Gets a letter from Oscar and realizes it was for Lenore. Ships it off to her little haunting patch in Salem. Drinks. Writes. Drinks some more.

He’s on a trip to visit Lenore when news gets out that Anne and Charlotte have escaped. He leaves his cane back home on accident, and isn’t prepared for their ambush. He reappears a few days later, in Baltimore - always in Baltimore - and is taken to a hospital. He spends most of his time there weaving in and out of reality, dreaming of kingdoms by the sea and lives where they could have been happy.

He thinks Annabel might be there. He sees a flash of red hair, anyway. He needs to tell her. He never got to tell her.

He reaches out for her arm. His vision is fading in and out and in and out and -

“Annabel,” he gasps out. The words are muddled, but it’s more than he’s been able to say for days. “It…it was always you…too. It was…always…always…”

“Shh,” she says, and it doesn’t quite sound like her - doesn’t sound lyrical enough, soft enough, fond enough - but he’s said it, he’s finally said it. “You need to rest.”

And so he does.

 


	2. The Love That Was More Than Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> edgar tries to remember when he fell in love with annabel lee.

  


Edgar wasn’t quite sure when he’d fallen in love with the beautiful Annabel Lee.

Perhaps it would be easy to say that he’d loved her from first sight; she had certainly been quite the vision to behold, standing on his doorstep, her auburn hair glowing in the afternoon light…

Annabel had always seemed to shine a little brighter than everyone else. Even then.

Even now.

* * *

_It was always you._

When had she fallen in love with him? Had she? Was that really what she was confessing? If only they’d had more time. If only he’d had more courage. If only he’d figured it all out sooner.

If only he’d said it back.

* * *

Edgar wasn’t sure when he’d fallen in love with her, but he was absolutely certain that he had. He wasn’t sure there was a world where he could have resisted falling in love with her; a universe where she smiled at him and his heart didn’t jump in his chest, where the very sight of her didn’t steal his breath.

He knew he’d loved her before there was anything to dissuade him from it - before Lenore and stupid _Eddie Dantes_ and dinner parties turned into mass murder sprees. He’d loved her from that first _hello_ to _it was always you,_ from poem to cupcake to stupid rocks. He’d loved her with his whole heart and soul.

No. Not loved. _Loved_ implies that he had stopped, somehow - that his love for her had floated away on her final breath. No. 

Edgar Allan Poe _loves_ Annabel Lee.

It wasn’t enough to save her.

* * *

_But our love it was stronger by far than the love_  
Of those who were older than we—   
Of many far wiser than we—   
And neither the angels in Heaven above   
Nor the demons down under the sea   
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul   
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

* * *

The world, he thought to himself, was dimmer without her. It might have had something to do with the fact that it was _night,_ but - no. The world just wasn’t _right_ without her.

For all of his words and his poems and his jealousies, he’d never managed to tell her that. That his world wasn’t right without her.

* * *

_It was always you, Annabel. For me. Always._

* * *

Edgar wasn’t quite sure when he had fallen in love with the beautiful Annabel Lee.

But he remembered the moment he realized that he had with a striking clarity.

His first birthday, after she had arrived in the neighborhood; he’d been in his study, trying to train one of more surly ravens, and he had suddenly heard her knock. It wasn’t exactly that he’d known it was her - though, he’d guessed as much, considering nobody else ever visited - but, in that moment, he’d hoped that it was.

There was nobody in the world that Edgar Allan Poe wanted on the other side of that door more than Annabel Lee - and then, suddenly, she had been there, auburn hair shining in the morning light…

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked!


	3. The Haunting of Lenore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lenore goes to salem, but even john proctor's hella chiseled abs aren't enough to make her forget The Night That Shall Not Be Mentioned (and, more importantly, a specific puppy-eyed author).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELLENORE! WELLENORE! WELLENORE!

  


If you asked Lenore why she had left Poe’s house behind, she’d probably give you one of two answers:

1\. Ed is creepy as all seven hells. (She would know. Been there, done that, got resurrected.)

2\. John Proctor’s abs.

And you’d probably accept it, because, like…fair enough.

It’d be a lie, either way.

* * *

Herbert George is a lame name, anyway, she thinks, sitting under John’s hanging tree, staring up at the glittery night sky. What kind of girl spends her afterlife moping about guys named Herbert? And it’s not even like she’d loved him. She didn’t. She’d only known him for, like, a hot second, after all, and he was pretty weird, even if he was cute, and defended her, and looked at her like - like -

Whatever.

It didn’t matter.

* * *

She was the ghost, here.

So why was H.G. the one haunting her?

* * *

“Pray tell, what is it that has you looking so somber, fairest Lenore?” John asks, one day.

“Nothing,” she says, setting down her martini. “This martini is just, like - totes gross, you feel me? Like, I know that Salem is kind of an oldie-type town, but you guys could _really_ step it up in the party department.”

If he notices how her hands shake, he doesn’t say anything. Ghosts are good at that - at overlooking pain. No one comes back unscathed, after all.

* * *

She was the ghost.

Why was she the only one left alive?

She’d lost them both, and she could never bring them back, and it wasn’t fair.

* * *

“Lady Lenore,” John says one day, in between his usual monologues lamenting his ghoulish fate.

“Yeah?” she asks, sipping at her wine. She’d given up on martinis, she told him a few weeks prior. Too tacky.

“Why didst thou leaveth your prior haunt? I do not believe thou hast ever told me.”

She stares into the glass for a moment. It’s dark red, like her fave lipstick from back In The Living Days. Like blood on the floorboards.

She sets it down and flashes him her flirtiest smile.

“That depends,” she teases, leaning closer, smiling like nothing has ever hurt her. “Who wants to know?”

John’s chiseled face falls back into his usual dull scowl. “I do, clearly,” he says, humorless as always. “What other reason wouldst I have for putting the question forth?”

“Ugh. You're being _totes_ boring, babe,” she tells him, with a theatric sigh, floating away from him again. “And, like…next time, buy me dinner before you ask me to start, like. Confessing my sins. Kk?”

* * *

She hadn’t loved him.

She really, actually hadn’t.

But she could have, and that was enough.

* * *

Perhaps, someday, if the just right person asked Lenore why she had left Poe’s house behind, she might give them one of two answers:

1\. She had loved one man in either of her lives, and she had lost him for the third time in that house. (First, when she died, then when he followed, and lastly - terribly - when Krishanti almost returned him to her.)

2\. She almost loved another. She met him and lost him all in the course of one dinner party.

It doesn’t matter which answer she gives, really.

It’d be the truth, either way.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W E L L E N O R E


	4. A Good Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU. Lenore is picking up the pieces after leaving Guy at the alter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote the first little bit of this on my phone and then i was like "i should write more" and so i did! i took some ideas from it and kind of...pushed it into The One Where Lenore Is Literally Rachel Green, but this one is actually better, so cries

“You’ve been like a ghost since you called off the wedding,” Annabel said, frowning softly, because Annabel Lee did everything softly. Her yell was another’s person’s light scolding. Honestly, Lenore wasn’t 100% sure Annabel knew  _ how  _ to speak above a lilting whisper; she couldn’t remember her raising her voice, ever, in all the years she’d known her. “I was beginning to think I was going to have to hold a seance just to see you again.”

“Ooh, like, with a psychic?” Lenore asked. “Because I know this girl, Krishanti - our moms were, like, besties in high school, or something - and she’s got this shop, and it’s totes creeps, and she gives, like - tarot card readings? And cool stuff like. She visited a few years ago for a reunion - I think you were out of town that week, visiting your cousins, or something - and she told me she can even  _ bring people back from the dead.  _ Which is kinda like - mmmm, okay? Pics or it didn’t happen. You feel me?”

Annabel’s eyebrows dipped reproachfully. “You’re deflecting.”

“ _ You’re  _ using psychobabble to try and guilt me into talking about something I don’t need to talk about,” Lenore shot back, focusing her gaze on her iced latte.

Not because she was uncomfortable, or anything. Lenore didn’t get uncomfortable. It was just - more interesting than this conversation. Clearly.

“No, I’m not. I’m...trying to understand.” A pause, and then, sincerely: “I’m  _ concerned. _ ”

Lenore sighed, lifting the straw and stabbing it back into the ice, sending them clicking together. “You don’t have to be, Anna Banana,” she said, guilt tugging at the bottom of her stomach. “I’m  _ fine. _ ”

“Lenore,” Annabel said, in her Kindergarten Teacher voice, the kindly stern one that always kept the boys on the playground from pulling pigtails. Annabel would be a great teacher, honestly - Lenore had always thought so. And it’d put her Psychology Major to good use. “I have known you my whole life. Give me some credit. I think I should know when you’re not okay.”

“What do you want me to say, Annabel?” she asked, tiredly. “I broke Guy’s heart. Mom and Dad are threatening to cut me off. Life isn’t really going - exactly as I’d hoped, right now.”

“You did the right thing.” Annabel reached out to put her prim, pale hand on top of Lenore’s, soothingly. “Nobody could expect you to marry someone you didn’t want to.”

“Yeah? Tell that to  _ literally  _ everybody else in my life.”

"Edgar agrees with me."

"Well, then, literally everybody else in my life  _except_ my lame, socially inept little brother."

Annabel frowned. “Well, they  _ shouldn’t  _ expect that of you. It’s not right. You deserve better than to sacrifice your happiness for someone else’s. This is your life, Lenore. You have the right to live it - however you wish. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Lenore said, turning her hand over to squeeze Annabel’s. “Thanks, bae.”

“No problem,” Annabel replied, kindly. “You know I’m always here for you.”

 

* * *

 

And she had been.

Annabel had been Lenore’s best friend since preschool; she couldn’t remember a life without her, and she wouldn’t want to. They’d been there for each other through elementary school drama and middle school acne, through Sadie Hawkins dances where Annabel was too shy to ask a boy to go with her. When Lenore went on her first date with John Proctor in freshman year, Annabel was there with words of encouragement; when he left for college, breaking poor fetus Lenore’s heart, she’d been the one to put it back together.

They were  _ sisters,  _ in every way that counted.

Which is why it kind of made sense, for Annabel to be the one to introduce Lenore to Guy de Vere. Annabel had been there through  _ everything  _ \- of course she’d be the one to introduce her bestie to the capital-L Love Of Her Life.

Or, so she’d thought.

 

* * *

Contrary to popular belief, Lenore was not, in fact, a heartless bitch. It wasn’t that she  _ planned  _ on leaving poor Guy at the alter. It was just that - she’d put on the dress, and she’d been looking in the mirror, and she realized, suddenly, that she couldn’t do it. Her stomach was turning - and,  _ no,  _ it wasn’t because of a bad batch of ribs at the bachelorette party, like her mom wanted to think - and her skin was all clammy, and she felt  _ sick,  _ and not in the nerves-before-the-wedding, butterflies-in-her-stomach kind of way. In the oh-my-god-what-the- _ hell _ -am-I-doing kind of way.

Really, it all came down to the fact that Guy deserved better than for her to marry him when she didn’t really want to. He deserved, like - True Love and Undying Devotion, and stuff. And she couldn’t give that to him.

So, she ran, because that was what Lenore did best. All the way to Massachusetts, because that was where Annabel was, and because it was home, and - she needed that. To heal, or whatever.

Flash forward three months, and here she still was, slumming it on her brother’s couch, alternating between crying into take-out containers and questioning her life choices. Which, in her opinion, was completely fair, considering the ordeal she’d just gone through, and everything.

Right?

 

* * *

“Wrong,” Edgar said, eyebrows pushing down over his eyes in irritation. “You need to get a job.”

“What?” Lenore squawked, sitting up in shock, nearly sending her dumplings flying. “I can’t do that! I - I need time! To heal!”

“ _ You’re  _ the one who called off the wedding!” he argued, pressing his arms against his side angrily, like he’s trying to keep himself from flinging them all over the place. “Three months is enough!”

“Are you - you are legit  _ looming  _ over me right now, bro -”

“What? I - I am  _ not  _ looming, you’re just on the couch -”

“You’re totally looming! You’re being _totes_ creepy -”

“You’re deflecting!” he shot back, bristling in flustered annoyance.

“ _ Some _ one’s been spending too much time with Annabel,” Lenore grumbled, stabbing viciously at a dumpling. “You two need to stop fussing over me. I’m  _ fine.  _ There’s no need for loomy interventions. Annabel already cornered me at Starbucks yesterday.”

Edgar scowled. “She’s  _ worried  _ about you,” he said, and then, gruffly: “We both are.”

A stab of guilt cut off whatever she was going to say next, clogging her throat and stemming her anger. He was kind of right, she knew; after all,  _ she  _ was the one who did the breaking up, so maybe there wasn’t... _ so much  _ justification for her wallowing, and he hadn’t complained  _ once  _ until now, even with her hogging the remote and leaving her stuff everywhere and spending her time glued to his couch, mooching off of sibling affection and whatever money he’s got left lying around since his latest book was published.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, sighing slightly. “It’s just - tough. And everybody here  _ knows.  _ Every time I go out, there’s whispering and  _ looks,  _ and…”

“I know,” he said, sitting awkwardly on the edge of the coffee table, so that he can look at her without looming. She watches as he fidgets with the sleeves of his hoodie - Annabel totes put him up to this; both of the Poe siblings  _ hate  _ talking about feelings - his lips twisting as he works out what to say. “But...unless you face the, er...problem...it’ll just get worse. And all of this wallowing is just making you sadder. If - if you had something to do, maybe it would help...take your mind off of it?”

“Maybe,” she admitted, pushing the skewered dumpling around in its counter. “I’ll think about it. Okay?”

“Okay,” he replied, pushing his palms into his knees, awkwardly. “Well, uh. Good - good talk.”

“Yeah,” she said, before adding (mostly to put him out of his misery): “Thanks, Ed.”

“Ah, yes, no - no problem. What are siblings for, right?” he said, pausing for a moment before standing, abruptly. “Okay! Well, I will - leave you to it, then.”

“Kk.”

He paused in the doorway, turning to look back at her. “And - Mom and Dad are...they’re wrong. You did...the right thing, Lenore.”

“So Annabel keeps telling me,” she muttered, stabbing at the dumpling, awkwardly.

“Because it’s true,” he said. “And - you’re going to be okay.”

“I know,” she said. “But - thanks. For saying it, or whatever.”

“Okay,” Edgar replied, like he didn’t know what else to say. After an awkward moment, he bobbed his head at her. “Good. Alright. I’ll - be going.”

“Alrighty,” she said.

“...Bye.”

“Yep.”

 

* * *

It wasn’t really that she didn’t have a  _ good  _ relationship with her brother. A lot of people thought that, Guy included, but...that wasn’t the case. They were just more for - nonverbal support, or banter, or fighting each other over the remote. They just weren’t the kind of people who liked to talk about their feelings, or get mushy, or whatever.

Even Annabel had spent a good part of their lives convinced that the Poe siblings hated each other - she was always going out of her way to try to sneakily get them to bond, growing up, like forcing them both to enter a baking contest with her was going to suddenly make them the closest of pals. 

She had mostly given up hope of any sudden “reconciliation”, until sophomore year, when they got a letter that one of Edgar’s poems had gotten published. 

Lenore’s parents had refused to buy a copy, because they published any submitted poem, and they thought it would be embarrassing to make a big deal out of ‘something that wasn’t really a success’, so Lenore went out and got a babysitting job with the Bront ës -  _ four  _ kids, and they were all complete brats; their parents were willing to pay just about  _ anything  _ to get out a few nights a week.

That Christmas, she had saved up enough to buy  _ ten _ copies of the book that, and she did. She sent the first eight to distant family members, and then there was another for Annabel, of course. The last one stayed, forever, right on the family bookshelf in the living room, because fuck bad parents, honestly.

(“Thank you, Lenore,” Edgar had said, smiling wide. The expression had looked awkward; Edgar Allan Poe had been sullen since birth, and none of them were really used to seeing him excited, or even particularly  _ happy. _ )

(“It’s no biggie,” she had replied, waving a hand in the air nonchalantly, but she was smiling, too. “I just figured the world should know what a huge nerd my little bro turned out to be.”)

(When she’d gone off to college, the book had come with her, and Annabel never again forced them into any doomed group baking competitions.)

 

* * *

“Finding jobs is hard.”

“Hello to you, too,” Annabel teased, and Lenore let out a loud groan, flopping face-first onto her bed, putting the call on speaker so she wouldn’t have to keep holding it. “I take it the job hunt isn’t going as well as we’d hoped?”

“Everyone in this town  _ hates  _ me. And if they don’t hate me, they don’t have any openings. I hate small towns. I hate job-hunting. I hate  _ life. _ ”

“Have you asked Oscar?” Annabel asked, patiently.

“ _ No, _ ” Lenore replied, obstinately, mushing her face into her pillows. “I  _ cannot  _ go and beg  _ Oscar _ for a job. He’s my friend! Or, he was. In high school. It’d be  _ totes  _ humiliating. And he’s such a gossip! He’d probably hire me just so that he could have first-hand knowledge of what a mess I am.”

“At least he’d hire you,” Annabel replied, in a cheery tone, which would probs annoy the  _ hell  _ out of Lenore if it wasn’t coming from Annabel.

“Hrgh,” Lenore grumbled back, and Annabel laughed, the sound less mocking than endeared.

“It’s a vintage clothing shop,” Annabel said. “I promise you would  _ love  _ it. And the girl he had helping him - Mary Ann - just quit, because she’s going to Sarah Lawrence. It’s  _ perfect. _ And even if he doesn’t hire you, you could donate the dress.”

Lenore’s eyes immediately flickered to her closet door, where aforementioned wedding dress was still hanging, a glaring reminder of her mistakes. “But it’s so pretty,” Lenore replied, weakly. “It’s the  _ perf  _ wedding dress. I can’t just - get rid of it.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s bad luck to get married in the wedding dress you wore when you left someone else at the alter,” Annabel said, “and it’ll be good for you. Cleansing. Like a new Lenore!”

“I like this Lenore fine, thank you.”

“So do I,” Annabel assured her. “And so will Oscar.”

“ _ Fine, _ ” Lenore huffed. “But if this ends badly, you have to buy me something really, really nice.”

“Deal,” Annabel said.

 

* * *

 

Wilde, Oscar’s vintage dress shop, was a relatively-tiny, one-room store on the northern end of Main Street. If you didn’t know where to find it, or what it  _ was, _ you might pass right by it without a second glance - or, well, the chances of that are actually pretty slim, considering the outrageous outfits the mannequins are constantly stuffed into, but according to Oscar’s occasional Facebook rants, it was a diamond in the rough, a gem in a sea of cretins, a gift to these lowly fishermen and their offensively-orange raincoats.

Lenore was, privately, inclined to agree; say what you will about Oscar, the man knew his way around clothes.

When they were growing up, the shop had been Ralph Waldo Emerson’s art gallery, which was basically where boring hippies spent their weekends, alternating between commenting on paintings of trees and planning their next hike into the mountains. 

Then, suddenly, Ralph had joined one of those little communities of people banding together in huts up in Maine, where they were living off of the earth and making their own clothes or whatever, living free of the shackles of materialism, and it - and his loyal patrons - had been abandoned. A few years of it just sitting there, looking bleak and empty, the darling Oscar Wilde had snatched it up with what his parents had intended to be his college fund.

And here it had sat, ever since, bringing vintage fashion to the stylistically-impaired.

Lenore hadn’t been here since sophomore year of college, when she’d come back home to help Edgar move some stuff from his dorm to the family house and sort through the attic. It had been - different; barer. It had been almost two years old, then; still at the beginnings of its existence. It had still smelled the same, though; like expensive French cologne and beautiful clothes.

A bell tinkled - once, twice - when she pushed open the door, welcoming her in - that hadn’t changed, either.

(Suddenly, she was nineteen again, stepping into the chill of air conditioning after a day lounging on the sunny, burning-hot beach, and Oscar’s head had popped up over the counter, his eyes bright and full of life. She remembered thinking, then, that this was where they were both meant to be; that they were doing what they were born to do.

(Funny how some things can change.)

“ _ Lenore Poe,  _ as I  _ live  _ and  _ breathe _ …! Is it really you?”

Oscar rushed around the counter with the flamboyant grace that had accompanied him since they were kids and he had refused to go outside for recess, in case it ruined his new shoes. Lenore was kind of surprised by the rush of fondness that hit her, seeing his face again - she had  _ missed  _ him. Annabel was a forever kind of bestie, but Oscar had always gotten her in way even Annabel couldn’t; he’d been the person she turned to when she didn’t want Annabel’s benevolent kindness.

“Um,  _ yeah, _ ” she said. “Who else do you think could pull off this top?”

“Mm, good point,” Oscar hummed, stopping in front of her, as though to take her all in. “You  _ do  _ look fabulous. Breaking hearts  _ has  _ always agreed with you.”

“Thanks,” she said, brightly. “ _ You  _ just won me a free trip to the spa.”

“Oh? How so?” he asked.

“I bet Annabel that you wouldn’t last two minutes before mentioning the wedding-that-wasn’t,” she said.

“Oh, psh,” Oscar huffed, waving his hands through the air as if to shove away the remark. “Can you  _ blame  _ a dear friend for being  _ curious? _ Honestly! You act as if I’m some kind of  _ gossip. _ ”

“A gossip? You?” Lenore replied, letting out a theatrical gasp. “Who would  _ ever  _ say a thing like  _ that _ ? Why, I might as well say that your tie is just a shade too dark to go with that jacket.”

He reached down and plucked at the offending article of clothing, twisting his lips in dismay, before looking back up at her, eyebrows flicking upwards. “Touch é ,” he replied, swaying back behind the counter. “Now, whatever can I help you with, my dear?”

“Two things,” she said. “The first would be a job.”

“I  _ see, _ ” he replied, pursing his lips. “I was  _ wondering  _ when you were going to come in here. Frankly, when I’d heard you asked  _ Louisa May  _ for a job in her creepy pescatarian  _ grocery  _ store, I was almost offended. This is the only store in this town worthy of Lenore Poe, and we both know it. Everyone else in this godforsaken town can’t even  _ dress  _ themselves, let alone sell anything  _ interesting. _ ”

“Is that your way of saying yes?” Lenore asked, raising an eyebrow.

Oscar made a  _ hmph _ sound, unimpressed with the show; he had, after all, been there during high school, when she’d spent hours in the mirror perfecting the art of the Single Eyebrow Raise. She was pretty sure Oscar had been born with the talent; he’d probably come out of the womb with one eyebrow up and one arm flung out in dismay.

“That all depends,” he drawled, suddenly, drumming his fingers on the glass of the jewelry counter, looking her over once more - looking for weaknesses? Strengths?

“On?” she prompted.

“On what  _ goody _ you’re hiding in that garment bag,” he replied, crooking his finger at the aforementioned item. She had hurriedly draped it over her arm when she’d gotten out of the car, and it was starting to get a little sore, but part of her was still reluctant to hand it over.

“That would be the second reason I’m here,” she said, hefting it onto the counter. “Take a look.”

Oscar unzipped it with all the swift grandiose of a clothing expert, eyes glittering as he peeled it open to get a good look at the dress. “Oh, my  _ Lord, _ ” he breathed. “Is this -  _ the  _ dress?”

“Yeah,” she said, a bit wistfully.

“And you’re donating it? Are you  _ sure _ ?” he asked, emphasizing the  _ ‘sure’  _ in that way he did, the one that always made people laugh, and suddenly she was questioning - everything. Annabel had been right, it was time to let go, but did that have to mean letting go of this? It was her  _ dream  _ wedding dress; it was  _ hers.  _ And, sure, okay, maybe it  _ would  _ be a  _ little  _ weird to wear it if she got married for real, but  _ still. _

“Yeah,” she repeated, biting her lip, reaching out to stroke the fabric. “It’s totes gorgeous, but I think it’s time to cut off some loose strings, let go of a few things...y’know?”

“Of course,” he said, zipping up the dress as swiftly as he had revealed it. “I would ask for your prior experience, but I don’t particularly care. You have great style, and you have a great taste in friends, which says a lot about your character, yadda yadda yadda, the job is yours. Can you start working tomorrow? We can go over all of the boring details then.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Lenore bobbed her head coolly, but in reality, she was a little taken aback; honestly, she had figured Oscar would give her a few days to stew over it, just because that was the kind of person Oscar was.

Either way, she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so when he reached out to shake her hand, she didn’t hesitate before taking it.

“Oh, and Lenore?” he said, as the bell clanged goodbye, and she looked over her shoulder to see that his back was to her, as he examined the dress. “If you’re  _ really  _ looking to let go...I’d recommend the bookstore. It’s just a little down the street, across from Dante’s, next to the ice cream shop. Can’t miss it."

Lenore’s eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t remember a bookstore this far up Main Street.”  
  
“Oh, you wouldn’t. It’s rather new.” He looked over at her then, with an overdone wink that made her _immediately_ suspicious. “Tell the little man behind the desk that Oscar sent you. He’ll know what you’re looking for.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i might write a part two with a bunch of h.g. and stuff...but right now i'm v tired...so u get this instead


	5. the smoke, the fire, and the moth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> annabel and lenore as a vengeance-seeking lady-ghost duo. what else could you want????
> 
> (cameo appearance: george wickham, lydia bennet, and gigi darcy from lbd)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally this was a request on tumblr and i loved it so much and i had a lot of fun writing it so....maybe i will write more of this someday???? who knows???

Legend tells of two girls - two ghosts - two shadows, lurking on the edges of the world we know. One is made of fire; one of smoke, and you never see one without the other. They are an omen, a reckoning, a murmur in the ear of the traitors they condemn.

It is said that, once, they lived and loved and lost, but that was long enough ago that there is no one left to tell their story. Just the shadows they inhabit. Just the poems. Just each other.

Legend tells of two girls - one of fire, one of smoke; they come in the night; one tends to the burns of the scorned, the hurt, the melancholy, and one listens to the tearful stories, and when the sun rises, they set fire to the worlds of the men who hurt them.

* * *

Their story starts when they’re young, as everything does, on the night of a big party, some grand affair to celebrate Annabel’s father’s latest monetary success.

They’re hiding in an upstairs cupboard, alternating between giggles, shushes, and holding their breath in the dark, thrilled at the adventure and terrified at the prospect of being caught.

“Annabel?” Lenore asks, sudden and soft, her knee bumping Annabel’s.

The red-head squints over at her in the dark. “Yes?”  
  
Light filters in through the crack at the bottom of the door, setting Annabel’s hair alight, sending it scattering and burning over her shoulders like burning coals. Like a phoenix’s feathers. Like a candle’s warmth. Like - Annabel. Annabel, Annabel, Annabel. Lenore’s first and only home.  
  
“We’re going to be together forever, right?”

It’s the sort of thing she can only say to Annabel, the sort of vulnerability she can’t - afford, with anyone else.

Annabel smiles. She understands. She reaches over and puts her hand over Lenore’s; leans her head into the crook of her shoulder; lets the smell of lavender wash over her.

“Of course,” she says, the words barely more than just a separating of lips, but Lenore hears them all the same. “It’s us.”

They hold onto each other a little tighter; it’s years before they let go again.

* * *

Lenore dies first, which is ridiculous and unfair and _wrong,_ because she wasn’t supposed to die at all. She wasn’t supposed to _leave,_ to be gone, to leave Annabel alone in a world that was too big and too dark and too sharp. She laid in bed for two weeks and imagined never getting back out again.

On the first day of the third week, Annabel wakes up to see Lenore lying beside her, and she cries and cries and cries and Lenore focuses all of her energy into holding onto her.

“Shh, Annie,” Lenore murmurs into her hair. She doesn’t smell like lavender. She doesn’t smell like anything. And it hurts, acutely, because this is Lenore - of course it’s Lenore - but it also isn’t. It’s a shadow of the girl she loves. There is still room for grief in Annabel’s bruising heart. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Annabel gasps out, tears falling in fat droplets down her cheeks. “Just - don’t go away.”

“I won’t,” Lenore promises. “Swearsies.”

“Okay,” Annabel whispers back, eyes fluttering closed as she presses her cheek against Lenore’s sternum, waiting to feel a breath that never swells. She feels real, feels like Lenore, but she also - doesn’t. She feels hollow, somehow; soft and real and hers on the outside, but without any stuffing; without all of the messy insides that make us human.

Annabel pushes this thought to the side, and lets herself fall asleep to the sound of Lenore’s soft humming. 

* * *

Annabel dies second, with the hands of a man she had pictured a life with around her neck, and she will spend the rest of their afterlives sweeping out the dust from inside Lenore’s luminescent chest.

Lenore simply brushes Annabel’s hair out of her eyes - sweeps a finger over the bruises lining her porcelain neck - and frowns like sadness was a living thing, burrowing inside of her stomach, like it was a plague and she had caught it, and Annabel doesn’t know the cure.

“You wouldn’t be dead if it wasn’t for me,” Lenore says, softly.

Annabel presses her hand against Lenore’s cheek. Furrows her eyebrows. “All you did was die,” she reminds her. “I’m the one who trusted him.”

“I trusted him with _you_ ,” Lenore replies, voice trembling, reaching up to put her hand over Annabel’s, her brown eyes watering and searching for forgiveness that she’s always had. “That’s so…so much worse.”

“It’s not our fault he was a psychopath,” Annabel says, sternly.

“I know,” Lenore says, because she does; but knowing and believing are two different things, and these girls know that better than anyone, so Annabel simply smiles - soft; understanding - and swipes her thumb over Lenore’s cheekbone and pretends that they’re never going to fade away again.

* * *

The first girl is named Samantha. She’s fifty-three, and her husband is cheating on her with their across-the-street neighbor and she’s resigned and crying herself to sleep at night and trying to hold on, to pretend, but she doesn’t know if she can anymore -

“We have to help,” Annabel whispers, when they drift by to see the woman crying in the front seat of her car.

“I know,” Lenore says, holding onto Annabel’s hand, hard, her jaw setting at the sight.

* * *

The first man is named Thomas, and he nearly cries when Lenore walks through the wall into his study.

Samantha gets a divorce, full custody, and a gorgeous new haircut.

Thomas gets the scorn of the neighborhood and a year of nightmares about ghosts with flowing black hair and flaming tongues.

* * *

It’s years and years before they catch wind of George - it’s H.G. who tells them, tips of his ears burning red, laptop shifting awkwardly in his fumbling hands. The explanation stumbles, haltingly, from his lips - Lenore’s jaw drops in horror when she sees the site displayed on the screen. Annabel’s hands are shaking.

“He can’t get away with this,” she finds herself saying, each word trembling past her lips and dropping to her feet like tear drops.

They both look at her in concern.

She pushes herself up to her full height.

“He _can’t_ get away with this,” she says again, harder, and Lenore’s eyes flicker over her face, before she nods, slowly.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Alright. Let’s do this.”

* * *

There are two people in the whole world who will ever wonder where he went, after everything. Two girls, made of fire and smoke, forever burning under the weight of his hurt. They can’t take the wondering from them, the anxiety, the haunting in the backs of their eyes - but they can take away the danger.

After all, in the words of Lenore the Lady Ghost herself, what’s the point of being a ghost if you can’t haunt the asshole exes of the girls who outlive you?

* * *

And so they live, dead and smarting and together, until the end of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you liked it!!!


	6. a holiday party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> holiday parties!!! poebel!!!!! implied side-pairings!!! ooh! ahhh!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my secret santa gift for ourleaderjemilla on tumblr!!! check her out bc she's legit the best tbh

The moment Edgar woke up, he knew something was amiss in his ghoulish abode. It was a kind of bone-deep knowing that is so often used in stories; the immovable gut knowledge that something is invariably, terribly, _wrong._

In retrospect, he really should have seen it coming. He was up against Lenore, after all, and there wasn’t a soul, living or dead, who could change her mind when she got an idea in her head. While Annabel would call this an admirable trait, Edgar knew it would be the cause of his destruction.

And the moment he awoke on this, the morning of December 24th, he knew the Grim Reaper had finally come calling.

He just didn’t expect for death to sound so much like a doorbell.

* * *

“Come on in, guys!” Lenore is saying as Edgar rushes down the stairs, his shoulders hiked up to his ears in preparation for whatever chaos this damnable ghost has brought upon him now. “Yeah, just leave your coats on the hanger over there…yeah, okay, nice to see you, too, Oz, but leave my boyfriend _alone,_ please…”

Warning bells clang throughout Edgar’s very soul, and he pauses on the steps, wondering if it would be wise to simply turn and go back upstairs, while he still has the chance.

Before he can give fleeing any more thought, however, Annabel drifts down the hallway, and he abandons any notion of hiding away from his fate in a darkened room. She looks radiant, with her red hair curling around her shoulders delicately and her smile wide and authentic. He would do anything to keep that smile on her face, he knows - even if it means facing whatever scheme Lenore has concocted now.

“Edgar!” Annabel exclaims, eyes bright as they fall on him. She grabs onto the rail of the staircase, buzzing with excitement, and his heart does a little jump at the sight of her. Even after so long, Annabel Lee managed to make Edgar feel like he’s walking on air just by looking at him; a rather embarrassing side effect of falling head-over-heels in love, he suspects. “Oh, you’re just in time!”

And so the dread comes back, full-force. “In time? In time for what?”

Annabel laughs, the sound chiming like bells, twinkling like fairy lights, spinning through the air to his ears like a thousand ballerinas - 

“The party, of course!” she says.

Edgar goes rigid with terror. “Party? What - what party, I didn’t -”

Oscar Wilde comes sweeping into the foyer, dressed to the nines, with Lenore drifting in behind him, eyes twinkling with mischief.

“I have arrived,” Oscar declares, grandiose as ever. “The night…has begun.”

Annabel’s smile widens further, and Edgar knows, with a sudden clarity, that this is one party that he will not survive to the end of.

* * *

“I must say,” Edna is saying to Mary Ann, her hands wringing nervously around the stem of her wine glass. “I was…surprised to receive an invitation.”

“So was I!” Mary Ann agreed, pushing back the brim of her hat and fluffing out her chest. “But then I figured, to hell with it! I’m already dead, aren’t I? It’s not like we’re in any danger now, eh?”

Edgar scowls.

“Aw, lighten up, buddy,” Ernest says, swinging an arm around the begrudging host’s shoulders and taking a swig out of his flask. “It’s been an hour, and nobody’s been murdered.”

“Yet,” Edgar mutters, darkly, and Ernest sighs, clapping his friend on the shoulder drunkenly - once, twice, both with enough force to make Edgar flinch.

“Stop bein’ such a buzzkill,” the drunk advises, before spotting something across the room. “Speaking of buzzkills…C’mon, Wells, it’s a _party_ , put the water _down_ -”

And Edgar is alone again.

* * *

Annabel finds him not long after, hiding in the elevator to the wine cellar, and she smiles kindly when she sees him.

“It’s a little crowded out there, isn’t it?” she asks, sitting next to him gracefully, tucking her skirts around her as delicately as possible. A tiny stream light hits her neck as she twists, and his heart clenches at the sight of the bruises ringing her collar, but then she turns to face him again, and she’s smiling, and her light chases the demons away again. “I’m sorry. I really thought you’d known. Lenore said she’d asked you.”

“She did,” he mumbles, eyebrows furrowed down low over his eyes. “I said ‘no’.”

“Oh, dear,” Annabel says, reaching out to take one of his hands in hers. He lets his thumb swipe along the back of her barely-there hand, absentmindedly - lets her presence calm him as it always does. “If I’d known, I never would have let her…”

“It’s not your fault,” he tells her, abruptly, letting his lips twist up into a twitching, reassuring smile. Their eyes meet, and she smiles back, soft and tiny and encouraging. “The party isn’t so bad. Everyone seems to be having a…a…”

“A good time?” she asks, and he snorts a little, squeezing her fingers with his own.

“A good time,” he agrees.

Annabel laughs faintly, and leans into his shoulder a little, taking comfort in the warmth she no longer gets to feel on her own. “You aren’t, though,” she says, softly. “Having a good time. Are you?”

“Of course I am,” he says, his cheeks warming as she looks up at him with those big, beautiful eyes. “I’m with you.”

Her smile comes back, full-force, and she cups his face with her free hand, pressing her chilled forehead against his own, relishing in the feeling of being together, at long last. 

“I love you, Edgar Allan Poe,” she says, kissing him lightly on his nose, watching as a blush spreads up his neck and into his cheeks.

“I love you, too, Annabel Lee,” he tells her, eyes flicking over her face, drinking in every beautiful line.

She opens her mouth to say something more, but before she can, the door to the elevator bursts open, and there’s H.G., looking harried.

“I’m - I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, but - it seems Ernest has initiated a competition with Dostoevsky based in which one is able to consume the most alcohol, and I fear he has, perhaps, forgotten that Dostoevsky is a ghost, and therefore cannot become inebriated, and I’m not entirely sure that Ernest’s liver can sustain the amount of liquor he is digesting, especially at his current rate…”

Edgar groans, but when Annabel rises, so does he.

And so they walk back into the party, hand-in-hand, ready to face Ernest’s drunken escapades, a room full of writers (and ghosts), and whatever else life (and death) decides to throw at them - as long as they face it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you liked this!!! <3


	7. no other thought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Reflection On Annabel Lee
> 
> (beware: angst and poebel ahead)

Annabel Lee loved Edgar Allan Poe, from the first moment she saw him until long after she breathed her last. This is important. She loved him, desperately and whole-heartedly and so much that it hurt, sometimes. This is part of her story.

It’s just not the most important part.

* * *

“Whatcha readin’?” Lenore asks, plopping down at her vanity.

Annabel looks up from her book, watching her friend run a silver brush through her thick, dark hair. Her stomach feels hazy; full. That’s one of her favorite parts of reading, she thinks. The feeling an afternoon with a good novel leaves you with. “ _And Then There Were None_ ,” she says. “It’s by Agatha Christie. Have you heard of it?”

“Nope!” Lenore grins, wide and teasing, at Annabel’s reflection in the mirror, and Annabel offers a small, fond smile back. “Is it any good?”

“Oh, yes!” she assures, pushing herself up so that she’s sitting with her back pressed firmly against the wall. “It’s quite compelling. A group of people have been invited to an island for a dinner party, you see, and someone’s killing them off one-by-one, according to this little rhyme, and the truly odd bit is they’re all guilty of some indiscretion or another! Dubious crimes that they appear to have gotten away with, where the court saw them as innocent…It’s down to the last three people, and I can’t figure out who it is.”

Lenore’s eyebrows furrow, and she stops brushing for a moment. “Three? You usually crack it halfway through.”

Annabel lets out a breath of a laugh, her cheeks warming at the comment. “I don’t know about that,” she says. “I’m just…I feel like I’m missing a few clues. You know I only figure it out once I have all of the information. Or, at least most of it. But I just can’t figure out what the motive could be for killing all of these people…I suppose it could be Marston, as he hunts for sport, but he still doesn’t seem the type to murder in cold blood. In defense, maybe, but not pre-meditated like this…”

Lenore rolls her eyes, making a face at Annabel in the mirror, but Annabel’s known her long enough to see the fondness lingering beneath it. “You’re such a _nerd._ ”

Annabel laughs, and Lenore smiles, and for a moment, they’re home.

(They are sixteen and alive and breathing and warm, in a world without De Veres. They are safe. They are young. They don’t know what lies ahead.)

* * *

She had always prided herself on being able to read people, on being able to figure out their puzzles, on knowing their good and their bad and how to appeal to the better bits. It had gotten her through her life.

It had failed her in the months before her death.

What was it about Eduardo Dantes (Edward De Vere Edward De Vere Edward De Vere) that changed it all? What was it about him that tricked her into trusting him? Into walking him right into the arms of everyone she loves most?

It wasn’t her fault that he betrayed her, that he was a liar and murderer, that he killed all those people.

But, in the end, her judgment had failed her, and it had gotten people killed.

It wasn’t her fault that he put her in that position. But she should have figured her way out of it.

* * *

“For you,” Eddie is saying, head tipped towards her modestly. “You mentioned that it was your favorite, once, and so when I saw it in the shop window…well, I thought it’d be an appropriate gift. Do you…like it?”

Annabel runs her fingers over the cover of the book, her eyes smarting.

_And Then There Were None,_ the cover reads, in curling, golden text. The sight of it is enough to make her heart soar in her chest - it’s the best kind of book, the kind that toes the line between _used_ and _well-maintained,_ that makes her feel like she’s touching something remarkable. Of course, that’s how she always feels about books, but this one - holding it in her hands, it brings her back to summer days curled up on Lenore’s bed, mind turning itself over and over…

“Oh, Eddie,” she says, smiling up at him, wide enough to make her eyes crinkle and her cheeks sore. “I _love_ it. Thank you so much.”

Eddie smiles softly. “Happy Birthday, Annabel.”

* * *

Was it Eddie’s smile that confused her so? His eyes? The charming stories? The way he looked at her like he was listening? Was he truly such a great liar or was he just saying what she wanted to hear?

Or was she just _seeing_ what she wanted to _see_?

It was infuriating. Maddening. Terrifying.

* * *

She’s standing on the bridge, staring up at the sky, book in hand. It doesn’t hurt to look at the sun, anymore. It makes sense, she supposes; ghosts don’t _actually_ have eyes, after all. She can’t think too hard on it - most of her energy is on her hand, on keeping it firm and real and -

She lifts the book up to the light. Flips it open to the title page.

_For Annabel,_

_May you solve the mystery first this time._

_\- Eddie_

She can hear his voice, can hear the way it would curl around the words, and it makes her feel itchy and uncomfortable and so, so _wrong._

Her hand starts to shake, and she lets go of her concentration, watching as the book tumbles out of her hand and over the railing, into the river below. Her chest pangs at the sight of a ruined book, but it’s a reminder, a reminder of him, of what he’s done, and she can’t hold onto it anymore.

She can’t.

* * *

The warning signs were all there. The moments where she should’ve known, where he looked at her and smiled and it had seemed so sweet but, no, now that she was looking back - now that she _knew -_ were always a little too sharp, a little _mocking._ All along, he’d been laughing at her, stringing along Edgar, plotting against Lenore’s happiness…

And yet, she couldn’t hate him. She tried. She tried and tried and tried, but she _couldn’t hate him,_ and she hated that more than she had ever hated anything in her life. He had killed so many people - he had killed _her_ \- he had hurt Edgar and Lenore, had spread so much hatred, so much fear. She should _hate_ him. She should burn with the force of her anger. She should. She should.

But he had killed himself, too. Maybe not directly, but - still. He had destroyed himself in a quest for revenge, in a haze of grief, and she didn’t agree with what he’d done, and she didn’t miss him, or mourn him, or excuse what he’d done. 

She didn’t love him. She just didn’t hate him, either.

* * *

“So? What do you…er. Think? Of it? I mean, it’s - I know it’s a little rusty, in a few, uh - a few places, like, um…the beginning, I was…I was struggling there, and then the middle - it, um, it got a little too wordy, and the ending stanza was abrupt - really, the, um. The whole thing is bad. I’m going to rewrite it. So, so don’t worry about any of that, because it’s all going to be thrown away -”

“Edgar,” Annabel says, softly, her fingers curled gently - reverently - around the edges of the papers he had given her, hands shaking, mustache twitching. “This is _amazing.”_

She looks up at him in time to see his lips twitch up into a nervous, pleased smile - once, twice, and then again, wider and wider, until it turns into a full-blown grin. “R…really? You think so?”

Annabel nods perhaps _too_ enthusiastically, but she can’t help herself. Edgar’s writing - his _writing,_ it felt like…mist! And dusty, ancient books, and thundering hearts, and - it was so lovely, and so him, and it always managed to make her feel a little safer, despite the rather macabre content.

“Truly,” she says, “it’s a masterpiece.”

His eyes crinkle at the edges - _raven’s feet,_ she thinks to herself, with a little giggle - and he pulls his chin into his neck, clasping his hands behind him as he rocks back on his heels. Something in her chest swells at the sight of him, pleased and beaming and utterly beautiful and all hers, and she reaches up to peck him on the cheek, delighting in the way his cheeks darken at the affection.

“I wrote it for you,” he says, when she pulls away, shuffling awkwardly, eyes darting away from hers. “I - I changed some details, of course - the yellow hair, for one, and…the name, and the eye color, but the feeling…ahem…”

“Edgar?”

His head lifts. His eyes meet hers, nervous but strong. Her stomach flutters at the emotion in them. “Yes?”

“I love you, too.”

He smiles, and she’s home.

* * *

Annabel Lee loved Edgar Allan Poe, and it was not the most important part of her story - she would always be the most important part of her story - but that didn’t mean it wasn’t profoundly important, on its own. 

She loved him, and he loved her, and it saved them, a little; to have someone to hold, to rely on, to trust. 

To have each other, on the days when their memories felt like they were going to swallow everything that was left, everything that was still good…

Annabel Lee loved Edgar Allan Poe, and not even Eduardo Dantes (not even Edward De Vere) was able to take that from her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you liked this maybe whoops


	8. multiverse theory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a wellenore drabble about what might have been

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also known as the fic where Not Even Eddie Dies

There is a world where Lenore never met Guy De Vere.

The idea makes her throat feel thick and her nonexistent skin feel prickly and it’s true, but it’s wrong, somehow. Even after everything, she’s not sure she likes the idea of a Lenore without Guy.

So, scratch that.

There is a world where Lenore met H.G. Wells first.

Where she hadn’t left Annabel’s side, where she’d seen the way her bestie looked at her agoraphobic neighbor and pushed them together in some insane turn of events, where they threw a grand murder mystery party after they got married, which of _course_ Lenore attended, because, A, free drinks, and, B, Lenore _never_ passed up an opportunity to party.

Where she met H.G. Wells without the pressure of a murderer. Without him dying a few hours later.

(When the party ended, she would have kissed him on the cheek and told him to send her a raven sometime, and he would’ve turned red and nodded and it would’ve been _totes_ adorable.)

In this world, she’d meet Guy and they’d be friends. Everybody needs a Guy in their life, after all. Someone soft, and kind, who would be willing to give you 110%. Who loved with all their heart.

(Lenore likes to think that she surrounds herself with people like this in every life, but she knows that’s not possible, so she just holds onto this: in these two little worlds, she has H.G. _and_ Annabel _and_ Guy. It’s enough.)

She never meets Edward De Vere in this world. Or Eduardo Dantes. Or whatever. And that’s just fine with her. He’s someone from a story. He’s not real, not to her, to them, not a threat to their happiness.

Annabel never meets him, either. This is, in Lenore’s opinions, one of her fave parts of this Other World: there is a place where Annabel doesn’t have Eddie hanging around her neck like a noose; like bruises; like guilts and regrets that shouldn’t be hers to carry.

This is a world where Lenore does not die on her wedding day.

She wears the same dress, because there’s no universe in which she _wouldn’t,_ and H.G. cries when he sees her, and she teases him about it later, and he’s too kind to mention that she let a few tears when he was reciting his vows, too.

(Edgar comes up to her at the reception, looking so solemn you’d think it was a funeral, and gives her his present face-to-face. “You have a very nice nose,” he says, curtly.)

(”Thanks,” she replies. He nods, once, jerkily, and then he’s gone again.)

(The present is a necklace with a raven pendant, and she loves it more than she’ll ever give him the satisfaction of knowing.)

This is a world where Guy lives, too. Where he marries a nice, sweet, quiet, loving girl who doesn’t eat bad ribs and doesn’t leave him with a broken heart. Where she attends his wedding and he attends hers and there is no bitterness, no lost love, no heavy hearts. In this world, neither can imagine a world where they fell in love, let alone the lives that love would cost the people around them.

(”Can I have this dance?” he asks, after H.G. gets roped into a foxtrot with Lenore’s Aunt Norris, and she’s laughing as she nods, and they talk about the weather and her dress and the service and the way H.G. has turned the weirdest shade of pink _ever_ , and it’s friendly and it’s casual and there are no lives hanging in the balance, no feelings left unexpressed, no hidden hurts.)

This is a world where Lenore wakes up to the smell of machinery and the byproduct of whatever breakfast contraption H.G.’s fixed up now, where she goes over to Annabel’s and talks about time travel and Lenore’s new dress and Agatha Christie’s newest book and reads Annabel’s latest draft of whatever thriller/romance she’s come up with, now.

(”I think it’s almost ready to show my publisher,” Annabel admits one day, as they stroll across the bridge of the Poes’ backyard, the sun shining. “Which is good, because my deadline is coming _very_ soon.”)

(There are no ghosts here, no bad memories, no dead girls with too much guilt. Just a pretty bridge and a calm day and a pair of good friends.)

(”Well, I think it’s totes amaze,” Lenore assures her. “Have you shown it to Edgar yet?”)

(”Oh, yes,” she says. “He’s been introducing me as ‘his wife, Annabel Poe, the _famous authoress’_ for a fortnight.”)

It wouldn’t be a boring life, of course. There’s no world where Lenore could _possibly_ live without a little adventure - but the point of this one is that they _live._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you liked this!!


	9. two ghosts and a poet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which lenore and poe call up krishanti's little sister and ask for a favor or two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poebel!! implied wellenore!!! a kind of a weird ending!!! a.k.a.: every fic i have ever written tbh

“Chill out,” Lenore says, rolling her eyes, like her hand isn’t shaking around her martini glass. “It’s gonna work.”

“How do you know?” Edgar huffs, pacing jerkily from one end of the study to the next. “What if something goes wrong? What if she can’t get back through?” He pulls to a stop, looking out the window, into the darkness. “What if she doesn’t want to? What if - what if she heard what - what happened, and…”

Lenore scoffs, leaning heavily back against the wall, but her eyes are soft as they take in her roomie’s hunched shoulders. “You mean how you killed her murderer? In self-defense?” she asks, and he flinches.

“Yes,” he mutters, eying the floorboards warily. “That.”

She sighs, setting down her martini. “Listen, I’m just going to say this once, and then we’re gonna pretend it never happened: you’re _kiiiind_ of a cool dude, sometimes, and Anna Banana obvi likes you, like…a lot. And she’s literally the sweetest person to ever walk the earth. So, she’s gonna understand. Okay?”

A pause. A hesitation, really - an uncertainty. She knows this isn’t enough, that he won’t feel better until Annabel tells him herself, until she’s here.

Then, he gives a kind of abrupt nod, ducking his head - she watches as his hand flexes, once, twice, and wonders what he’s thinking about.

“Do you think she’ll…be able to bring back any of the others, as - as well?” Edgar asks, and Lenore immediately thinks of H.G., but she stamps away the thought as soon as it appears. No sense in giving herself false hope.

She shrugs as nonchalantly as she can, pretending to examine her nails. Her hands are still shaking, a little bit, and it’s annoying, because dying had taken so much from her, but here she is, still saddled with emotions she wants nothing to do with.

“Probs? I don’t know how the whole thing works.” He’s staring out the window again, broody as ever. “Why, do you feel some sudden, burning need to play crossword with Louisa May?”

He shakes his head. “Just wondering.”

She doesn’t know why he bothers lying to her at this point, honestly. They’ve lived together for, like, months. They survived a mass murder spree together! And, like…sure, she would’ve survived no matter what, because she was, y'know - dead, but that doesn’t change the Scare Factor as much as you’d think.

It sucks to watch people die. Especially when you love them. They both know that better than almost anyone, so why is he still -

Except she knows why. Or, she thinks she does. And she respects his privacy. She always has. It’s why they work. Both here, but never pushing or pressing or intruding.

She hates to admit it, but Edgar Allan Poe is actually a pretty good friend to have, all things considered.

He’s no Annabel, of course, but…well, roomies who hide murder together, stay together. Or something like that.

“How much longer?”

She sighs, deeply. “It’s been, like, five minutes. Stop freaking out.”

Edgar shoots her that ruffled owl look he has, where his eyebrows pull down so far over his eyes you can’t see them, and his chin dips into his neck, further and further, until…

“I’m not freaking out,” he grumbles. “I am…”

“Yes? You are…what? Totally wigging out?”

“No.” He scowls. “There is -” his voice dips, too, now - “there is no wigging happening. At all. I am - I’m completely calm!”

“Is that so?” she drawls.

“Y-yes!”

“You sure ‘bout that?”

His shoulders shoot up, and he hunches forward a little, curling into himself. “Yes.”

Lenore ponders on how, as a girl who literally _cannot breathe,_ she really sighs an excessive amount. But, then again, who could blame her, living with an agoraphobic murderer?

Her stomach shifts guiltily at the thought, and she reaches for her martini, focusing all her energy into finishing it off.

Tense silence falls over them again, like the kind of scratchy, unwelcome blanket her grandmother used to put over her when she pretended to fall asleep on the sofa. She could almost smell the lavender and moth balls now.

“Do you…” Edgar starts, and she glances over to see him staring, hard, at some book on his shelf. “I mean, does…Annabel…did she ever…talk to you…about me?”

There are times, in Lenore’s afterlife, where she craves something stronger than an eye roll, some great-and-powerful Other Option to truly and fully express how incredibly _done_ she is, sometimes. Most times.

“Oh, my _god,_ are you for real asking me that right now?” she asks. “She’s going to be here, like, any second. Ask her.”

“I can’t just _ask her,”_ he argues, affronted, bristling all over again. “It’s - how would that work? Like, oh, yes, Annabel! How good to see you! I am very sorry for your death, and I have missed you…terribly! Have you missed me? Would you, perhaps, like to marry me?”

“Can ghosts even get married?” Lenore ponders.

Edgar glowers. “That was not the _point.”_

“Don’t propose,” she says. “Just be chill. Wait for the right moment.”

Edgar opens his mouth to argue against this, maybe fail at a witty comeback, turn a little red in the face, distract her from the worry tugging at the part of her chest her heartstrings should be - _it’s Guy all over again it’s Guy all over again I can’t lose Annabel too I can’t lose Annabel too I can’t lose her I can’t_ -

His mouth snaps shut, and his eyes fall somewhere behind her, and his face freezes and softens and tenses and -

“The right moment for what?” a lyrical voice calls, shy and light, from behind her, and Lenore whips around to find Annabel Lee standing daintily in the doorway.

“Anna Banana!” she exclaims - _literally_ exclaims; there’s no other word for the way her voice rises, explodes, _shines_ with joy - relief - some other adjective for the way she feels full, suddenly. Lighter. Like maybe everything will be okay, after all, like she’s been telling Edgar since the sun rose the morning after the party. “You’re - you’re back! You’re here!”

Annabel smiles, wide, dragging her eyes from Edgar to Lenore, and she looks so much like home that Lenore feels on the verge of tears, suddenly, but she’s not even annoyed because Annabel is _here,_ she’s _back,_ and she’ll never go away again, like they promised when they were kids, playing princesses and hiding in wardrobes and whispering made-up stories about the strangers at their parents’ parties. 

She rushes forward and wraps her arms around her, and it’s not the same - not solid warmth, not the wafting smell of vanilla, not _living_ \- but it’s still Annabel’s arms wrapping around her, pressing into her like another limb, like a natural extension of the being that is Lenore, and it’s so much more than enough.

“I missed you,” she whispers, and feels Annabel run a hand over her hair.

“I’m sorry,” Annabel whispers back, and Lenore holds her a little tighter.

“You don’t need to apologize for _anything,_ Annabae.”

“I’m not entirely certain that’s true,” Annabel laughs, not quite with mirth but not quite bitterly either, soft, lovely, bell-like, “but thank you.”

There’s more to say - Lenore can feel all of her thoughts and confessions and feelings rushing into her throat, begging to be let out - how it’s all her fault, all of it, and Guy, and _Edward,_ and how it was her fault that Annabel had been killed, and it was her fault that _H.G._ had been…

But now they literally have _all the time in the world_ for that, for unhappiness and comfort and whatever, so Lenore steps back and lets her arms fall back to her side and watches as Edgar and Annabel lock eyes all over again.

(She has known Annabel Lee for, like, _ever_ \- practically their whole lives, really - and she has never seen her look at _anyone_ like she’s looking at Edgar Allan Poe, and it’s more than a little endearing.)

“Annabel,” Edgar greets, his face spreading into a smile - no, a grin. He’s actually _grinning,_ which she’s not entirely sure she’s ever seen happen before.

“Edgar,” Annabel replies, quietly, her eyes shining, like it’s - precious. Like his name is her favorite word in the entire world.

Lenore isn’t entirely sure they even notice when she slips through the wall, but it’s probably better that way. She doesn’t want to intrude on - whatever magical, silent connection is happening between them, right now. She’ll press Annabel on all the deets later (and maybe Edgar, too, just to watch as he gets all stammery and nervous); right now she’ll just…leave them to it.

She has a psychic to ask a favor from, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you liked this whoops


	10. happily ever after

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a fic about annabel throughout (and after) her life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: a lot of cupcakes ahead (and only one of them is annabel)

There was nothing Annabel Lee loved more than a good story.

Growing up, she’d read anything she could get her hands on - fairytales, folkstories, romances; thick, ancient books that Lenore said gave her a headache just looking at them. Annabel disagreed, privately; there was something only _too_ thrilling about books, about the promises lingering on their pages, the characters and morals and twists and turns, waiting for you to open the cover and soak it all in.

It was all, of course, _terribly_ unladylike. She knew that, and she knew what people would say, if they found out about her literary obsession. It was just that, when she was reading, Annabel didn’t really care.

* * *

She kept all the books at Lenore’s house, because Lenore didn’t care about ladylike behavior, and because she knew she could trust her with the secret, even if she didn’t particularly understand it.

Annabel spent the summer of her sixteenth year holed away in Lenore’s room, while her friend went out and found and broke hearts in equal measure. She had found, growing up, that mystery novels were by far her favorites - they scared the dickens out of her, certainly, but she always liked seeing how they turned out. She was never quite clever enough to figure them out along the way, but she always enjoyed seeing how it all ended up piecing together.

It felt bittersweet, in a way - mysteries rarely ever ended happily, she’d found, and she really did love a really happy ending. More than anything, she wanted the characters to get what they wanted, what they’d been fighting for, and to have someone to hold at the end of the day, who accepted them, battle scars and all.

But princesses waking from True Love’s Kiss had always just been one version of the story, and this was a lesson Annabel Lee learned rather early on in life.

* * *

“Mama, I want to tell stories when I grow up,” she had told her mother, once, when she was too small to know better.

“You do not,” her mother had replied.

“I do,” Annabel had said. “I want to write poems, and have adventures, and see all sorts of places, and write stories about all of it! Like in Papa’s books!”

Her mother did not put down her needle, did not look up, did not waver. 

“You will not have adventures, my dove,” she had said, swiftly, with the efficient brutality of the guillotine.

“Why not?”

“Because,” Mrs. Lee had replied, on a sigh. “Respectable young ladies cannot do such things.”

“Then I don’t want to be a respectable young lady, Mama,” Annabel had said.

The needle went through the cloth, and Annabel’s mother had shaken her head, tiredly. “I’m afraid you have no choice, my dove,” she said, quietly. “You’ll understand, one day.”

* * *

And so she did.

Cinderella had merely wished for a brief escape; Snow White had wanted to live without fear; Sleeping Beauty had no choice in her fate.

Princesses, running through forests and down halls and away from their castles. Princesses, who were meant to smile and smile and smile and curtsy and smile and say yes, please - yes, thank you - yes, I will marry you - yes, yes, yes.

Annabel was not as dumb as everyone seemed to think her. She knew what part she had to play. She learned to play it well.

* * *

“You look like a princess,” Lenore had told her, before Annabel’s first ball, smiling at her over her shoulder.

Annabel had smiled, softly, and squeezed her friend’s hand. “And you look like a queen.”

* * *

Fair maidens get princes and kingdoms by the sea, even if they do not particularly want them.  

* * *

Annabel Lee moved into the house next to Edgar Allan Poe’s three days before Lenore met Guy de Vere. 

It had once been the family summer home; she hadn’t been since she was ten, but after the death of her father, she had needed the memory of her golden childhood.

“You must marry.” Her mother’s words rang in her ears as she stepped into the doorway, letting the cool morning light shine through onto the floor. “We are ruined if you do not. _Ruined,_ Annabel. Do you hear me?”

Nice, respectable young ladies do not live on their own. They do not read romances, mysteries, fairytales - they do not live in fantasy. Nice, respectable young ladies find a prince and move into his castle and never ask why.

Annabel wasn’t sure if she was one of those young ladies, but she knew that she had to be.

“Yes, Mama,” her own voice replied, soft and sad. “I understand.”

* * *

A princess in glass shoes, a fly caught in a spider’s web, a red-headed girl in an empty house with too many books and not enough options.

They’re all the same, in a way.

* * *

She spent a day inside the house, unpacking her suitcase, rearranging furniture, reading fitfully, before she decides to get up and stop moping. 

This was her life - she was content with it. She would not be a poet. So what? That didn’t mean her mother had been right. Life itself was an adventure. And she would do what she could to save her family, would marry a nice, respectable man and move far, far away from the sea, and one day, he would take her somewhere marvelous, somewhere she had never seen before, and she would watch the sun set, and it would be enough.

She baked some cupcakes - breathed in the smell of sugar and vanilla and let it fill the house, let goodness seep all the way into the floorboards, into its heart, its foundations - and packed them in little boxes.

After they cooled off, she would bring them around to her neighbors.

Who knew? Maybe one of them would be a banker. Or the heir to some grand estate.

 _Maybe,_ she thought to herself with a smile, wiping away the flour on her cheek, _Mr. Darcy is living just down the lane, and I will find a great love in him._

* * *

Suffice to say, she did not account for Edgar Allan Poe in the least.

* * *

“Oh, hello!” she greeted when the door opened. “I’m your new neighbor, my name is Annabel - Annabel Lee, that is - and I just wanted to introduce myself.”

She could not see the man’s face, in the shadow of the doorway, but for some reason, she didn’t feel scared at all.

She held up the box.

“I brought cupcakes?”

The door opened a little further, and the bright, midday light fell on the figure, revealing a twitching, handsome young man, with a bushy mustache and furrowed eyebrows.

“What kind?” he asked.

“Oh, I made a few different kinds…chocolate, red velvet, vanilla…”

“May I…can I have the…vanilla? Perhaps?” he asked, not looking her in the eye, and her heart squeezed a little, fondly.

“Vanilla is my favorite, too,” she told him, delighting in the sight of pink rising on his cheeks as she handed over the box. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mister…?”

“Poe,” the man replied. “Edgar Allan Poe. But - you can, um. You can call me. Edgar. Or Ed. Or Eddie. Or - no, maybe just - Edgar, would be fine. I mean, you can call me anything - that you want, really, but I prefer…”

The thought tapered off into the air, and she smiled.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Edgar.”

His lips twitched upwards, ever-so-slightly, and Annabel’s heart thrilled at the sight.

* * *

He was a writer. He was a writer, and he was all alone, and so awkwardly, endearingly quiet, that she couldn’t help herself. She found herself always making excuses to see him, bringing cupcakes and cookies and all kinds of sweets, asking about his latest writings. When she couldn’t see him, she wrote letters, and when he wrote back, she read every word ten times and then tucked it away under the floorboards beneath her bed, where no one could find them.

She loved him - dearly and deeply. She loved the way his shoulders tensed when he didn’t know what to say, and the way his words came out too fast or too soft or not at all, and his writing and his expressions and the way it all softened a little, around her. She loved him, and she didn’t know what to do with it, with the force of her affection, because her mother still needed her help, and she still needed a nice, respectable gentleman, and it would be selfish of her to tell him how she felt, so she didn’t.

* * *

The first poem came three weeks after his birthday, that first year, and it stole her breath away - it took her cage and turned it into a paradise, into hope, into a carefully-laid garden, into love, his love, and he laid it at her feet with his words, and, oh, how she loved him.

Every word stole her heart, lifted it out of her chest and hid it beneath the floorboards, burying it carefully under each of his carefully-chosen words.

* * *

Eight months later, she received a letter telling her of Lenore’s death.

Three weeks after that, Lenore appeared on her doorstep.

* * *

“So, Anna Banana,” Lenore asked, taking a sip of her martini. “Got anyone for a ghoul to haunt around here?”

Annabel stared into her tea, watched the steam rise, and thought of Edgar, all alone in that ancient house. He needed a friend like Lenore; a friend who would keep your books and your secrets. And there was no one in the world she would trust more with Lenore’s invisible, healing heart.

“Actually,” she had said. “I think I might.”

* * *

Eduardo Dantes appeared, quite suddenly, two months later.

She had been out buying some vegetables for dinner that night, and tripped on something or other, and then he’d caught her, saving her meal and her dress from utter ruin.

He walked her home. He kept the conversation polite. He carried her bags. He smiled at her like he was listening to what she was saying.

“So, what do you do, Mr. Dantes?” she asked.

“Ah, I’m just a lowly banker,” he said, with a modest shake of his head. “Nothing very interesting, I fear. Though I have had the opportunity to travel quite a bit.”

“Really?” she asked. “Oh, how exciting! I’ve always wanted to travel.”

He smiled. “Perhaps, one day, we could go somewhere together…if I may be so bold.”

“I’d like that very much, Mr. Dantes,” she said.

* * *

That night, she dreamed of sunsets and Edgar’s smile.

* * *

Days passed. Eddie visited more and more.

He didn’t find the poems under the floorboards, but he was smart enough to catch that the woman he was courting was receiving ravens from a male neighbor, and she was smart enough to know that he wasn’t pleased with it.

She bit her lip, baked a cupcake, and went over to wish Edgar a happy birthday.

* * *

She wondered what it was like, Sleeping Beauty’s curse. She wondered if it was like sleep, like death, or if it was different - if it was a kind of daze, like she was wandering through the woods of her mind and kept coming across two paths.

 _Wake up,_ the first path would cry. _Wake up and face the world!_

 _Sleep,_ the second would beckon. _Sleep, my dove. It’s safer._

Annabel knew which one she would pick, which one she would always have picked, no matter how horribly selfish it would be.

Maybe that was part of the curse, too. The shame. The regret. The knowledge that, despite it all, she would still choose the second path the next time around.

* * *

Eddie was a good man. He was good to her _._ He carried her things and brought her to Spain and didn’t ask much of her. He was all she could’ve asked for.

He wasn’t Edgar.

* * *

She was going to put the rock under the floorboards, next to her heart - she had planned to, the moment Edgar pressed it into her hands.

She kept it on her bedside table instead, and in her pocket when she went out, so that this small piece of him could be with her, no matter where she went or what she did.

* * *

She would love him for the rest of her life. She knew that. Eddie probably did, too. That was her adventure, and it was hers, completely. She loved Edgar Allan Poe with a love that was more than love, in rocks and cupcakes and words that fluttered on the page, and in thirty years, she would take out her heart and look at it and wonder about the man who wrote his name across it, and it would be enough, because it would have to be.

* * *

“Lenore has asked me to pick out an invite list for Edgar’s dinner party,” Annabel said one day, her hand brushing the back of Eddie’s as they walked through the gardens behind his home. “But, I must admit - I have no idea who to recommend.”

“It’s alright, my dear,” Eddie said, smiling, smiling, smiling. “I think I may have a few ideas on who to invite.”

“Oh, thank heavens,” she had laughed. “You truly are my savior, Mr. Dantes.”

* * *

A princess running to her prince, from her love, down the hall, through the trees, across the bridge -

“You,” she breathed, when he appeared, his face shrouded in darkness. She stumbled back. “You did this.”

“I must admit,” Eddie said. “I didn’t expect you to be the one to figure me out.”

She stepped forward, lifted her chin even as it shook, felt the guilt creeping through her bones. 

_I did this, I did this, I invited him here, I brought him to their doorstep…_

“Even if you kill me - Edgar will figure you out. You won’t get away with it.”

“You forget, my dear,” he said, smiling. “I already have.”

And then his hands were around her neck, and everything was fading, fading, fading…

* * *

“It was always you,” she said, on her last breath, because she had meant what she’d said. Edgar would solve the mystery, would save everyone left in that house - but this was her only chance to let him know _this._

There were so many words left between them, so many things she needed to tell him, things she needed him to know. Like that the Spanish sunset wasn’t as beautiful without him to share it with, and that she had kept every gift he’d ever given her, and that he’d made her feel safe and smart and secure in a way only Lenore had, before. He was the poem she wanted to write, the story she wanted to tell, the love she wanted to share.

She loved him. She loved him, she loved him, she loved him.

It’d be selfish of her to tell him that now, on her dying breath - she had broken his heart enough already.

* * *

“You know, when I was younger, I wanted to be a novelist,” Annabel told him, one day, when she had coaxed him out of the cellar and out into the gardens. They avoided the bridge, of course, but she knew the fresh air would do them both some good, even if she couldn’t technically breathe it.

“Really?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she told him, studying the way the light trickled down through the leaves of the tree they’d settled beneath. “I wanted to write about all of my grand adventures.” And then, after a moment, she added: “Perhaps that’s why I fell for you so easily.”

Edgar’s chin tucked back into his neck, bashfully, and she giggled, focusing her attention into her hand so that she could brush away the hair hanging into his face.

“I don’t recall it being _easy,”_ he grumbled, and Annabel smiled, softly, cupping his face in her barely-there hand.

“Edgar, I loved you from the very first time I laid eyes on you.”

His face softened as his eyes met hers, and her chest filled and swelled and glowed at the sight.

* * *

There was nothing Annabel Lee loved more than a good story - except, of course, Edgar Allan Poe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you liked this!!! have a good day friend <3


	11. Deleted Scenes From My Modern Wellenore AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lenore asks H.G. to go antiquing with her // edgar and lenore bro it out // some wild bronte sisters appear !!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so these are bad, which is why they didn't end up in the final draft, but i spent a while on it, so i didn't want to just delete it, and so....here are these, for your viewing pleasure

“H.G.,” Lenore says, one day, nudging his shin with her foot.

He hums in response, looking up from whatever he’s scrawling in his journal, his clear eyes focusing on hers. He’s wearing his reading glasses, like he always does when he’s writing, and it’s distracting her, because he looks so _cute_ when he’s wearing his glasses.

Well. He always looks cute, but - _still._

“Yes, Lenore?” he prompts, all gently attentive, all soft concern, like always.

Her skin flushes in embarrassment.

“Oh, I just...” she starts, looking away from the intensity of his gaze (H.G. rarely ever makes eye contact, but when he does, he really, _really_ doesn’t half-ass it), her eyes settling back onto the magazine in her lap. “There’s this really cool antique store just outside of town, and they’re having this _super_ awesome sale, and, like, I would ask Edgar, but he’s - you know. _Edgar._ And Annabel has a field trip to this aquarium in Boston or something, that day, and I was just...wondering if maybe...I mean, like, I could totes go alone, but they have these _supes_ nerdy clocks that you’d definitely like, and you could put it up in the bookstore and everything, and -”

She’s rambling. Lenore Poe does not _ramble._ She charms. She dismisses. She doesn’t just _lose her cool_ like this. Ever.

“I would love to go with you,” H.G. says, and she looks up at him to see him smiling timidly, eyes twinkling kindly. “What day is the sale?”

“Tuesday,” she says,  _way_ faster than is socially acceptable. “We could go during your lunch break, or something. So you don’t have to, like, close up shop or anything. It won’t take long. You’ll be back in, like - thirty minutes, tops. Promise.”

“Sounds like a date,” H.G. replies, quietly, still smiling that same, wavering, soft smile, letting his eyes linger on hers for just a moment before it’s suddenly _his_ turn to look away. 

She watches as he tucks back into his journal, his glasses slipping a little down his nose, and hopes that her heart isn’t beating loud enough for him to hear.

* * *

 

“Quick - which one of these sweaters looks better with this skirt?”

Edgar doesn’t even bother to glance up, just flipping the page of his book with a dramatic _flick._  “You know, for someone who says this isn’t a date, you’re putting an awful lot of effort into this.”

“It’s _not_ a date,” she argues, immediately, pushing up her chin. “And I resent the implication that I have to _like_ a guy to want to dress up. Maybe I just like looking good.”

“Obviously,” he fires back, no hesitation. “But that wasn’t my point, and you know it.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” she tells him, cheeks burning.

“You’re the one worrying about what to wear like you’re in high school.” 

He says it like _it’s just H.G.,_ like _c’mon Lenore, you’ve gone on a thousand dates,_ like _you were engaged like four months ago, you’ve been through this before,_ and she knows that’s not what he means, but it hits her hard, nonetheless.

“Oh, shut up,” Lenore snaps, and that’s what finally makes him look up.

His eyes soften when they meet hers, seeing the poorly-concealed anxiety lingering beneath them.

“The blue,” he says, after a moment, before going back to his book.

“Thanks, bro-bro.” 

He makes a face when she presses a kiss to his forehead as she passes, like they’re _actually_ back in high school, and she lets herself laugh at the sight.

* * *

 

“Shit,” Lenore says, when H.G. pulls up into the store’s tiny parking lot, and H.G. looks at her in concern. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, and she shakes her head, pointing towards the door of the shop. He follows her finger, and twists his head to be able to see what Lenore is seeing, right now. 

His eyes land on two women, looking through garden ornaments, and he turns back to her, not understanding, and Lenore remembers, for the thousandth time, that H.G. didn’t grow up here - that he hasn’t just _always_ been a part of her life. It feels weird, even just after a few months, but - no, nope, she’s not going to think about the implications of _that_ line of thought. Not yet. Not ever, probably.

“That’s Anne and Charlotte Brontë,” she explains, slinking down in her seat. “I used to babysit for them. Ugh, what are they _doing_ here?”

“Buying a lawn gnome, it appears,” H.G. says, pulling her eyes back to the two sisters - who do, indeed, seem to be looking at lawn gnomes.

Lenore snorts, and H.G. smiles, looking over at her for a moment before his eyes flicker back, nervously, to the sight of the two girls, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel.

“Do you want to go back?” he asks, after a moment, glancing over to gauge her reaction. She must have looked at least a little alarmed, because his ears flush red at the sight of her expression, and he angles himself so he’s facing her just a little more. “Not that - I mean, I would still very much enjoy, ah, to see those clocks you mentioned, but - I, I don’t wish to...um. What I - what I _mean_ to say is, if you wish to avoid any - awkward reunions, I understand.”

She looks over at Anne and Charlotte. If they see her, they’ll ask her about the wedding, she just _knows_ it. And as much as she doesn’t want to talk about Guy in general, she really, _really_ doesn’t want to talk about him in front of H.G.

But there’s something about the way his face - falls, as he says it, as he gives her the out. Like he’s actually been looking _forward_ to going _antiquing_ with her, and, well. She’s not made of _stone._

“You’re not getting rid of me _that_ easily, Wells,” she says, smiling when his eyes fly up to hers in genuine shock.

H.G. smiles back, wide and unwavering.

“C’mon,” she says. “Let’s go before they get all the good garden gnomes.”

* * *

 

“Oh!” Charlotte gasps, clasping her hands together, and H.G. has to cough into his fist to conceal his laugh at Lenore’s expression. “Lenore Poe, is that _really you_?”

“In the flesh,” Lenore replies, mustering up a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “It’s nice to see you, Charlotte.”

“Anne, _darling_ , look who it is,” Charlotte says, and Anne manages to pry herself away from a gnome with a garish blue tie to join the reunion.

“The long-lost Lenore. We were all beginning to think you’d _never_ come home.” She smiles, just as in-authentically, and hooks her arm with her sister’s. “It’s such a shame about you and Guy.” Her eyes flutter meaningfully over to H.G., and she looks him up and down with enough judgment to make Lenore bristle. “I see you’re jumping right back on your feet, though. Good for you.”

“Yeah, well, this has been fun, but H.G. and I are kind of on a tight schedule,” Lenore says, grabbing his hand and shooting the sisters a sharp smile. “Oh, and say hi to Branwell for me! Is he still doing community service for that drunk and disorderly charge?”

Charlotte’s eyes freeze over and harden. “Yes.”

Lenore scrunches her nose back in mock-sympathy.

“Oh, well, I’m sure he’ll be up and partying again in no time.” And then, with a little wave, she’s tugging H.G. into the shop and away from the sisters and their murderous expressions.

“Drunk and disorderly charge?” whispers H.G. into her ear, and she looks up at him in surprise, before letting herself relax.

“Jane Austen’s dad works on the police force,” she tells him, the right of her lips tilting up in amusement. “Annabel heard all about it, after the arrest. Apparently there was public nudity involved. The whole thing was a big scandal - and also why Anne and Charlotte moved back home in the first place, actually.”

“Where were they before?”

“London. They opened a publishing house, or something - everyone was very proud, blah, blah, blah. It was a whole thing.”

H.G. glances over his shoulder at the door, and then dips his head a little closer, looking awkward. “I must confess, I don’t find either of them quite...agreeable.”

She has to laugh, at that, and he smiles like that was his intention all along. “You and me, both, Glasses.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops


	12. i could be your valentine (if you would be mine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> modern wellenore sitting around in abby may alcott’s antique shop and talking. also valentine's day shenanigans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “I’m trying very hard not to see all this as a metaphor for my life.”

“Oh, dear,” H.G. says, and Lenore glances up to see him holding a plastic doll, his face bunched up like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. “This one looks positively murderous.”

“Isn’t that the point?” Lenore snorts, wandering over to get a closer look, nonetheless. H.G. tilts the doll towards her, and she leans her head back away from it, making a face at the creepy, wide-eyed expression on the doll’s face. “No wonder that shit’s on sale. They’re probably worried it’s gonna wake up in the middle of the night and kill all the other dolls.”

“Shh,” H.G. whispers, putting two fingers over the doll’s ears, a smile twitching onto his lips. “Don’t let her know we know. She might come after us, too.”

“My mistake,” Lenore says, ducking to look at a stack of board games in an effort to hide her grin from his too-beautiful, too-knowing eyes.

They shift through toys for a little while longer, before Lenore sighs, sitting back on her heels and looking up at her friend. “What is the actual _point_ of an antique store if they don’t have a single _Clue_ board game, honestly?”

“Well-made chairs?” H.G. offers, fingers skipping absentmindedly along the line of a shelf. “Creepy dolls? Fine china?”

“Eh,” she says. “Their chairs aren’t that great.”

She brushes her hands off on her knees and pushes herself up - H.G.’s hand darts out to steady her when she wobbles, and her cheeks burn, but she still sends him a grateful smile. He smiles back, as kind as always, and she has to look away from the light of his eyes. Jesus, it should not be legal to be that cute.

“Would you like to go to another store?” he offers, and she shakes her head, stubborn as always.

“This is the best antique store in town,” she says, putting her hands on her hips and lifting her chin high. “I’ve been coming here to buy Annabel presents since we were, like, _babies._ There’s no way I’m gonna ditch it just because its board game supply suddenly sucks.”

H.G. lets out a quiet laugh at that, his fingers twitching as he slides them away from her arm and back to his side. She tries very hard to look like she isn’t disappointed. “I gather online shopping would also be a betrayal?”

“I’m practically the only one keeping this antique shop alive,” Lenore reminds him, running a hand over the splintering table of stuffed animals. “It’s a miracle it didn’t shut down while I was in New York.”

“How could it?” he asks, hesitantly, but with a kind of sureness behind the words that draws her gaze back to him. “It had to be here when you returned.”

“Sap,” she says, pushing her sunglasses down onto her face to cover her blush.

“Only for you,” is his only reply, and those three words are enough to send her heart reeling in her chest. And, the thing is, she _knows_ he’s joking, that this is just how they are, but - there’s something in his voice, the kind of genuineness that H.G. does _everything_ with, and it kills her a little.

“Whatever, Herbert,” she shoots back. “Come and help me find something ugly with ravens on it. If we’re here, we might as well get something for Edgar, too.”

“Does the Stranglers album count?”

“Fucking _always,_  let me see that.”

* * *

Lenore stares at the rocking chair in front of her, sizing it up for a moment - taking in the raven carvings and the uncomfortable-looking pillow with _fly free_ crudely stitched across the top and the crack up the front leg - before nodding.

“Perfect,” she declares. “He’ll absolutely hate it.”

“I’m not sure Edgar’s reaction is actually worth paying for this,” H.G. replies, easily, his eyebrows furrowed a little.

Lenore snorts, batting this (sensible and true) argument out of her way. “You’re just saying that because you don’t have to _live_ with him,” she says. “I get to see his grossed-out face every time he walks by it. It’s perfect. Plus, _Annabel_ will love it, so he won’t be able to just throw it away. He’ll be stuck with it.”

“So will you.”

“Yeah, and it will be a trophy to remind me of my success,” she says, craning her head to look around for the saleslady.

H.G. sighs. “Why do I even try?”

“Because you love me,” Lenore replies, before catching sight of her target and rushing around a display of wooden bears, leaving H.G. to stare after her. “Oh, hello, Mrs. Alcott, hi, I was just wondering…”

* * *

“So now your plan for Annabel’s present is just _books._ ”

“Hey,” Lenore starts, pausing in her perusal of the top shelf to shoot him an indignant look. The effect is somewhat lost by the sudden rocking of the stool she’s standing to _reach_ aforementioned shelf, but H.G. is too kind to tease her for it. “I know my best friend. She _loves_ reading. If I find the right book, she’ll totes love it - and I, not Edgar, will be her favorite Poe sibling again, and everything will be right in the world.”

H.G. pushes his glasses up on his nose. “I’m…fairly certain Annabel would object to the implication that she has favorites at all.”

“Yes, well,” Lenore replies, bracing herself against the bookshelf as the stool shifts and shakes a little more. “She will after this.”

“I could just look for you,” H.G. offers, with an anxious frown. “That stool doesn’t look safe.”

“Psh, I’m fine. There’s no way _the great Lenore Poe_ is going to be taken down by a -”

And that was around where Lenore fell.

* * *

Lenore groans as Mrs. Alcott disappears back around a corner to go and get ice for her ankle, knocking her head gently back against the books on the lower shelf. “That was so _embarrassing,_ oh my god. Did you see her face? Abby Alcott, judging _me_ for _my_ life choices, like I didn’t _literally_ see her chain herself to a tree when I was in sixth grade.”

If it had been Edgar, he would’ve said something along the lines of ‘well, it’s not really like you’ve made that many _good_ life choices’, and she would’ve kicked him, and that would’ve been that. But this isn’t Edgar, her brother, the perpetual pain in her ass - it’s H.G., and she’s a little in love with him, and he just saw her fall on her ass in the middle of an antique store, and…

And so he just smiles and eases himself down to sit next to her, hugging his knees tight up against his chest and looking over at her like he was waiting for her to make the call. Like he’d follow her anywhere. “Were they going to tear the tree down?”

“No,” Lenore said, rolling her head to look at him, letting herself smile back at him, just a little. “She was protesting because people were complaining about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s gallery. Said that it was performance art about the lack of appreciation towards Mother Nature in modern society.”

“I see,” H.G. says, and then: “I really didn’t know what I was signing on for, when I moved here, huh?”

“Nope,” Lenore sighs, dropping her head onto his shoulder. “And now you’re stuck with us. Crazy hippies and all.”

H.G. leans his head against hers, tentatively comforting. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Nerd,” she says, turning her head to bury her face in the fabric of his coat.

“Says the one who spent her high school years antiquing.”

She scrunches her nose. “Isn’t there, like, a rule against being mean to the sick and injured?”

“You said it didn’t hurt that much,” H.G. replies, concern leaking into his voice, and she shifts just enough that their eyes can meet.

“It doesn’t,” she assures, and then, to ease the _whatever_ that had formed between them when she looked up: “But that doesn’t mean you should tease me.”

H.G. laughs, two parts incredulous and five parts fond. “You make fun of me all the time when I’m sick,” he reminds her. “Once you came into my apartment while I had the flu for the _express purpose_ of teasing me.”

“And to bring you Annabel’s soup,” she defends with a frown, lifting her head all the way up from his shoulder. “I thought you might need to see my _lovely_ face to make you feel better. And it totes worked. You were back at the store in, like, two days.”

“And then you spent the next fortnight attempting to convince me to rest more,” H.G. adds, and she looks down and away, focusing her eyes on her sore ankle. H.G. knocks his elbow against hers, lightly enough that she can barely feel it. “I never quite…thanked you for that. I believe.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, you did. You gave me a book on fashion with an inscription saying that you were _so very grateful_ for my concern, but that you were _quite well_ and I had _no need to worry._ ” And then, because she’s feeling a little brave, or a little stupid: “I read it in a week.”

“A book is hardly a proper thank you.”

“Depends on the book,” she says, thinking of the way she’d traced her fingers over the inscription, smiling and wishing and _pining_ , like she was some high schooler with a crush.

“Still. Thank you, Lenore.”

“For the teasing or the nagging? Or - was it the soup? Because, really, you should be thanking Annie for that, I barely -”

“For caring,” he interrupts, voice so quiet she barely hears it. 

Lenore looks at him in surprise to find him staring at the wall across from them, his fingers playing with the sleeve of his coat, and something inside of her softens at the loneliness of the sight.

She reaches over and takes his fidgeting hand in hers, intertwining their fingers and smiling at him. “Well, don’t thank me for _that,_ ” she says. “It’s _pretty_ easy.”

His lips twitch upwards, and he looks down at her fondly. 

“And you call _me_ the sap,” he teases, squeezing her hand gratefully.

She rolls her eyes. “Because you _are,_ ” she argues.

“Only with you,” he repeats, eyes trained on hers, and suddenly she can’t move, or breathe, or focus on absolutely anything but his eyes, clear and beautiful and earnest - not her sore ankle, or Annabel’s present, or the fact that Mrs. Alcott is going to be back at any moment with a bag of ice and her judgmental hums and…

And sometimes, when H.G. looks at her like this, she forgets that he doesn’t love her back. Not like that. Not like - not like she wants him to.

This thought, combined with the sudden shuffling of Mrs. Alcott’s return, is enough to finally free her from H.G.’s gaze. She looks up just in time to see the old woman dottering around the corner, waving the ice cheerily, and slips her hand out of H.G.’s before the other woman can see. 

He lets her.

* * *

“How long do you think she’s gonna make me sit here?” Lenore asks, pressing the ice lazily against her ankle, a moody frown on her lips. “It doesn’t even hurt anymore. Crazy old lady.” H.G. clears his throat, shooting her a reprimanding look over his glasses, and she rolls her eyes back. “What? I’m _fine._ And I need to get Annabel’s present!”

“You know, I still don’t know why your friend anniversary is on Valentine’s Day,” H.G. says, and she gapes up at him.

“For reals? You mean - I’ve _never_ told you the story of how Edgar and Annabel became friends?”

H.G. frowns. “No?” he asks. “I just assumed they were friends because you were friends, and he was your brother.”

“Hah,” Lenore says. “ _No._  They barely talked to each other, when we were kids. They were both hella shy.” And then, after a moment of reflection: “I mean, they still are, but it was even worse then.”

His eyebrows furrow together in adorable curiosity, and she resists the urge to pepper kisses all over his cute face. “So, how does Valentine’s fit in?”

“Well, basically, all the kids in Edgar’s class pulled this _hella_ dick move,” Lenore explains, rocking the chair gently back and forth as she remembers the story. “I didn’t hear about it ‘til we got home, but basically, they all decided to get enough valentines for everybody _but_ Ed. 

“Which obvi was the _worst,_ ‘cause he was just sitting there as they passed them out, and he just…he didn’t get _one._ And he didn’t tell the teacher, because of his anxiety, and so he was just sitting there while the other kids laughed at him and ate their candy.” 

“Oh, no,” H.G. murmurs, looking stricken, and she nods, feeling the anger settling back into her stomach.

“Yeah. He actually, like, ended up locking himself in the nurse’s bathroom and, like. Refusing to come out. And so Ernest Hemingway - Ed’s playground nemesis - is going around the playground, bragging about how he made Edgar Poe cry, blah, blah, blah, and then Annabel hears. And she’s _pissed._

“And so she tells Ernie that he’s a big bully and she doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore - which broke his heart, because he had a massive crush on her back then, the little shit - and she goes to her locker and gets all of her candy and marches right into the nurse’s office and knocks on the bathroom door and asks Ed to let her in, and he did, because he was weak for her then, too, and she gives him all of her candy and asks him to be her Valentine.”

“And he said yes?”

Lenore snorts, adjusting her ice pack with an eye roll. “He started crying. Annabel just sat next to him and waited for him to stop. The nurse was beside herself. She didn’t know what to do with them.”

H.G.’s lips twitch up into a smile, fingers twisting at the bottom of his coat, his back straight as ever, because H.G. Wells doesn’t know how to lean. Or relax. “Poor Edgar.”

“Poor Ernest,” Lenore corrects. “I gave him a black eye the next day. And he’s a drunk now, so. What goes around comes around.”

He eyes her for a beat, after his laughter quiets, like he has an idea. “You said Annabel read mystery books when she was a kid, right?”

“Yeah…?” Lenore says, confused. “She was obsessed with them. Why do you ask?”

“Did she, perhaps, ever read the Trixie Belden series?” he inquires, slowly, and she squints up at him.

“Yes? I remember she had a big crush on one of the character’s brothers or something. It’s why she does that ‘rabbit, rabbit’ thing at the beginning of the month.” 

He looks at her oddly, and she realizes H.G. probably doesn’t know about Annabel’s various superstitions. “I’ll tell you later,” she says, waving him off. “Now, what’s up with the sudden questions?”

H.G. slides a book off of the shelf and flips it around so she can see the cover.

 _The Secret of the Mansion._ First edition.

Lenore’s eyes light up, and she reaches for it with her free hand. “Glasses, I could _kiss_ you.”

His cheeks turn red under his stubble, and he looks silly with embarrassment. “Yes, well. You know what they say,” he manages. “The right book is best thank you.”

God, she loves him.

* * *

H.G. insists that she shouldn’t be walking on her ankle, and she just barely convinces him to take her wallet to pay with her money. She has to pull out the _I want to be the one to buy them,_ please, _Glasses,_ but he relents eventually, and she plays a game on her phone to pass the time while he pays.

When he comes back, his face is a little flushed, but she’s nice enough not to ask why.

(And also because she’s pretty sure it’s because Mrs. Alcott had made some assumption about their _relationship_ , and she _does not_ want to have to deal with a sprained ankle _and_ a rejection in one day, thank you very much. Especially one that could cost her H.G., which would be - unthinkable. Like, so very much _not an option._  At all.)

* * *

The next few weeks pass by in a blur of Annabel’s kindergarten stories and vlogging and lunches at Ink Wells where she pretends not to be desperately in love with H.G. through mouthfuls of frozen yogurt.

So, in a way, it’s a lot like it was before Halloween.

Except, in the days leading up to Halloween, the world was advertising ghosts and ghouls and murder. Not romance and hearts and everything she was trying to _forget._

Case in point: 

“How did you convince me to do this, again?” she asks Annabel, frowning at the paper hearts in her hands.

“My womanly wiles,” Annabel replies, primly, as she strings up some streamers around the living room. “And also because you love me, and your brother, and you want us to be happy, because you’re a secret sap.”

Lenore rolls her eyes. “Or _maybe_  I just want Edgar to move in with you so I can have the house to myself,” she says. “Which is probably gonna happen after you pop the question.”

“Hey, how do you know I won’t be moving in here? It could be like college all over again. The Three Musketeers.”

Lenore groans, reaching up to tape one of the hearts over the window-seat. “Anna Banana, I love you, and I would love to live with you again, but you have no idea how much I _do not_ want to be the girl living on a married couple’s couch. Just the idea of it is giving me hives.”

She pulls back to look at her work, only to see a lopsided paper heart with twisted tape and - yep, a rip along the bottom, clear as day. She looks over her shoulder at Annabel, who is also staring sympathetically up at the mangled decoration.

“I’m trying very hard not to see all this as a metaphor for my life,” Lenore says, gesturing from her decoration to Annabel’s side of the room, which looks perfect and romantic and happy, even though she’d crafted half of these with her kindergartners yesterday. “But, like…come on.”

“This is not a metaphor for your life,” Annabel says, sternly, reaching up to help Lenore down from her chair, her eyebrows creased with determination as she pushes a strand of hair out of Lenore’s face. “You’re a famous vlogger and a badass lady and you don’t need a man to be happy.”

Lenore frowns back at her. “But I really, really _want_ this one, Anna. He’s - he’s H.G., y’know?”

Annabel’s entire being softens, just a little, and Lenore just _knows_ she’s thinking of Edgar. “Yeah,” Annabel says. “Yeah, I know what you mean. So…what’re you gonna do about it?”

Lenore blinks. “What do you mean?”

“I _mean,_ I’m proposing tonight because I’m in love with Edgar and I know he’s the one I want to spend the rest of my life with,” Annabel says. “And I don’t know if he’s going to say yes -”

“Yes, you do,” Lenore says. “He’s been planning your wedding since seventh grade.”

“Okay, fine. But I didn’t know he liked me back before we started going out. You know? Like, I was super scared that he wouldn’t, but I still told him,” she says, “because I knew that if I didn’t, I’d never know if he felt the same.”

“I _did_ tell H.G. how I feel,” Lenore reminds her, and Annabel rolls her eyes.

“No, you gave him a pick-up line and then took it back before he could give you a proper answer,” Annabel reprimands, looking very much like the disapproving kindergarten teacher she is. “You’ve got to communicate with him, Lenore. You’ll regret it, otherwise.“

Lenore bites the inside of her cheek. 

“I’m scared,” she admits, because this is Annabel, and she knows she won’t judge her for it.

“And that’s okay,” Annabel replies, tugging at a loose strand of Lenore’s hair. “But wouldn’t it be better to know?”

* * *

Which is how Lenore Poe ends up standing in front of H.G. Wells’s doorstep at 9:14 P.M. on February 14th, 2017, her hands sticky from tape and her heart thumping in her chest.

“Lenore?” he asks, when he opens the door, blinking wildly.

“So,” she says, briskly, “the thing is, when I said that thing on Halloween, about wanting to be your girlfriend, I wasn’t actually kidding. At all. And I mean, I thought - I kind of assumed that you didn’t feel the same, because of how you reacted, and if you don’t, that’s - totally cool, and I get it, but I figured - hey! It’s Valentine’s, my best friend is proposing to my brother, I’m in love with H.G. Wells - probably the best time to find out for sure! So. Yeah. I am here, doing that, I guess.”

He has his glasses on, and he’s staring at her, and she feels a little like crying, so she fumbles in her bag for his present, pulling out the (poorly-wrapped) box and giving it to him, gingerly.

He looks from the box to her, some profound-but-unreadable expression in his clear eyes. “What’s - what’s this?”

“Your Valentine,” she said. “Or. Well. It’s _a_ Valentine’s Day  _present._ Because, I mean, well - obviously, _I_ was kind of hoping to…be your…Valentine.” And then, quickly: “If you want to.”

H.G. blinks at her, owlishly. She holds her breath. “Yes,” he says.

She freezes. “Yes?”

“Yes,” he repeats. “To - to all of it. _Lenore._ ” And he’s smiling, now - so wide she thinks it must hurt, and he lets out a soft, breathless, tinkling laugh as he steps out onto his front porch - barefoot, she registers, and for just a moment she worries about splinters - before his hands - steady, sure - are reaching to cup her face, and his eyes are clear and beautiful and _sparkling_ and - “I’ve been in love with you since you first walked into my bookstore.”

“Oh,” she whispers. And then: “Really?” He nods, still grinning, still laughing, pressing his forehead against hers, and she lets her breath rush out of her, lets herself lean into him and laugh along. “That’s good. That’s - that’s really, very good. Oh, my god, I thought you were gonna say no, _shit._ ”

“Lenore,” he says. “There is no possible universe where I would have said no.”

Her heart swells, and she can’t hold back the face-eating grin as she reaches up to cover his hands in hers. “According to the multiverse theory, that’s actually impos-”

He rolls his eyes and dips down to press his lips to hers, finally, finally, finally.

* * *

She’s cuddling with him on the couch, laughing through a Hallmark movie, when her phone buzzes with the text from Annabel.

Edgar, eyes wide and red-rimmed, smiling down at Annabel like she’s the whole entire world as she shows off their matching engagement rings to the camera, beaming with pride.

 _HE SAID YES!!!!_ the text reads, and Lenore laughs, tilting the screen so H.G. could see it, too.

“Did she honestly doubt he would?” H.G. asks, amused, and Lenore smiles up at him, just as dopey and dorky as Edgar had, reaching up to press a kiss to his stubbly jaw, loving his blush.

“What can I say? Annie and I can both be a bit thick,” Lenore says, and H.G. smiles softly down at her, and all is right with the world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked it!!!


End file.
